The Regulatory Standards Bill passed into law, the House got two independent MPs, and Chlöe Swarbrick got serenaded during an otherwise low-vibes week.
This sitting week has seen a remarkable drop in vibes, even by parliamentary standards. From Te Pāti Māori axing a third of its caucus, to a national day of reflection marred by the reflection that bad people still exist despite apologies, to prime minister Christopher Luxon announcing the government is “very cognisant of what our pronouns are, and they are ‘we’,” it’s been hard to find something to feel optimistic about.
And though the House had a minor makeover with former Te Pāti Māori MPs Mariameno Kapa-Kingi and Tākuta Ferris kicked to the curb to fend on their own, it hasn’t made much of a superficial difference. MPs Oriini Kaipara and Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke haven’t returned to the House all week, leaving only co-leaders Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi to hold the fort. So, the famously absent party’s attendance levels are still hitting the usual KPIs.
Ferris and Kapa-Kingi’s independence was announced by speaker Gerry Brownlee just before question time on Tuesday, after staffers spent the morning shifting the last of the pair’s office belongings down to the select committee rooms. Ngarewa-Packer and Waititi were second up on oral questions, asking Luxon about the removal of the requirement for school boards to give effect to te Tiriti (an amendment bill that was passed later that day).
Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, post-schism.
When questions to Luxon failed to make much of an impact, deputy NZ First leader Shane Jones rose for his own supplementary. “On the importance of the Treaty of Waitangi as a part of the education curriculum,” Jones began, “can [Luxon] confirm that conflict resolution is a key outcome, and sadly it’s lapsing?” The guffaw through the House was almost loud enough to mask Ngarewa-Packer crying “rude, Shane!”
It didn’t take Jones’s benchmate Winston Peters to find someone else to jab at: the Green Party. While co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick was questioning Luxon on homelessness, Peters tried to get his own questions in: what is the Auckland Central MP (who has no power over how government legislation is drafted, by the way) doing about rough sleeping?
When it was apparent that Peters’ badgering had gotten to her, he tried to soothe the tension with a song. “Haere mai,” Peters sang to Swarbrick, “everything is ka pai.” She, Ngarewa-Packer, Waititi, Jones and Peters gestured shushing motions at each other until the speaker interfered.
After question time, the House read for the first time a bill that the Greens and NZ First can find some middle ground on: the Racing Industry (Closure of Greyhound Racing Industry) Amendment Bill. And the day rounded off with the passing of the Education Amendment and Training Bill (No 2), bringing into force the removal of the te Tiriti commitments Ngarewa-Packer had spoken about earlier that day.
Ricardo Menéndez March votes on behalf of the independents.
On Wednesday morning, Act Party leader David Seymour kicked off the sitting day with the third reading of the Medicines Amendment Bill. The law allows for medicines already approved by two or more overseas regulators with similar standards to Aotearoa to be approved by the regulations minister within 30 days. As the House’s newest independent MPs were absent, Greens MP Ricardo Menéndez March voted on behalf of Ferris and Kapa-Kingi in their first non-party vote in the House. They were the dissenting voices, the only ones to lodge “no” votes.
But Ferris and Kapa-Kingi were in the House on Thursday when question time began, and were allowed their own questions and supplementaries – likely offered to them by the Greens. They got a supportive hug from National minister Tama Potaka at the end of the session – the second Māori party is looking stronger than ever.
Thursday rounded off with another big win for Act, 20 years in the making: the passing of the Regulatory Standards Bill (RSB). Green MP Tamatha Paul had a hot take: the RSB is a lot like a cockroach – “we keep stamping it out, but it just won’t die.” But her challenge to Seymour to “run and tell your mates in the Atlas Network that we’re going to burn this to the ground” only got her into a shouting match with NZ First MP David Wilson. Paul’s caucus colleague Lawrence Xu-Nan kept his thoughts more succinct: it’s a “neo-liberal cuckoo egg”.
David Seymour marks a 20-year win.
Labour MP Arena Williams had the most moving speech of the day, but her decision to start it off with a waiata made Seymour scoff. While she traversed the intergenerational trauma of land loss, Seymour and Act MP Todd Stephenson told her that her tears were “beneath you”.
But, it still passed with the support of the House. Either the bill will completely transform our legislation for the better, it will see the Libertarian-led downfall of our democracy, or it will do what is written inside of it: have absolutely no binding effect whatsoever on our laws. Watch this space.